Yup, we're boned: Supreme Court kills campaign finance reform

[Kidlicious]

The reason this is a left-right issue is because real leftists think they should be able to control how people think.

And the right doesn't want to control how people think? What do you think they oppose CFR for?

[David Floyd]

Oh, come off it. If Democrats benefited as heavily from unlimited campaign financing, you know they would oppose CFR too.

[Drake Tungsten]

Dude...

Beyond that, the central principle which critics of this ruling find most offensive — that corporations possess "personhood" and are thus entitled to Constitutional (and First Amendment) rights — has also been affirmed by decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence; tossing that principle aside would require deviating from stare decisis every bit as much as the majority did here.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/22/citizens_united/index.html

[Guynemer]

Constitutionally speaking, this was the right ruling.

We're still boned, but the law is the law.

[Drake Tungsten]

We're still boned

Please stop making me agree with Glenn Greenwald. It hurts...

I'm also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. My skepticism is due to one principal fact: I really don't see how things can get much worse in that regard. The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests (Dick Durbin: "banks own" the Congress). Corporations find endless ways to circumvent current restrictions -- their armies of PACs, lobbyists, media control, and revolving-door rewards flood Washington and currently ensure their stranglehold -- and while this decision will make things marginally worse, I can't imagine how it could worsen fundamentally. All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There's not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday's issuance of this ruling?

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/22/citizens_united/index.html

[Guynemer]

Drake, if your argument is

I really don't see how things can get much worse in that regard

how is that any different than Bender's more pithy description?





EDIT: Moreover, while its true that overturning this law is unlikely to make things any worse, it also suggests that things are unlikely to ever improve, short of a Constitutional amendment passed by the same congresspeople that benefit the most from there being no amendment.

Hence: we're boned.

[flash9286]

Dude...

Beyond that, the central principle which critics of this ruling find most offensive — that corporations possess "personhood" and are thus entitled to Constitutional (and First Amendment) rights — has also been affirmed by decades of Supreme Court jurisprudence; tossing that principle aside would require deviating from stare decisis every bit as much as the majority did here.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...ted/index.html

I don't think it requires tossing aside the principle. You can say that corporations are persons but then limit their free speech rights. Restrictions on free speech based on the identity of the person have been upheld in many contexts as long as there is a legitimate purpose for the restriction.

[Solomwi]

That's what it always boils down to. I got into this biz hoping for the luxury of bright lines, only to find more of a mind-numbingly nebulous morass than ever before. Maybe it's not too late to get into tax while there's still some sliver of sanity, or maybe be a farmer...

Double-edged sword. If the bright lines you hoped for were there, the business for you to get into wouldn't be, at least not in the relatively lucrative form it is today. Even tax is more like a complex web of bright lines, intersecting and twisting one another to the point where even a map isn't all that helpful (see, e.g., Subchapter K).

[Dinner]

Even McCain, the champion of Campaign Finance Reform, says the movement is now dead. Long live our corporate overlords.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9649150

[David Floyd]

Or, just amend the Constitution. Duh. Why the **** is it that we refuse to use this, the actual legal method of passing legislation that would otherwise be unconstitutional? Yeah, it's hard to get done, but it's supposed to be.

[Ben Kenobi]

And the right doesn't want to control how people think? What do you think they oppose CFR for?

Actually, no, no we don't. Hitler was a national SOCIALIST, and has zilch to do with 'right wing thought' as Stalin.

[Zevico]

Of course, if we didn't put everything under the sun in Congress' hands

Where else would you suggest you should put 'everything [or some things, and what are those things]'? The states?

Edit: never mind. Beaten to the punch after reading the rest of the 1st page.

[Zevico]

That's what it always boils down to. I got into this biz hoping for the luxury of bright lines, only to find more of a mind-numbingly nebulous morass than ever before. Maybe it's not too late to get into tax while there's still some sliver of sanity, or maybe be a farmer...

Story of my law student life. Statutory interpretation is post-modernism writ large.
Btw (and somewhat off topic), are second reading speeches and explanatory memoranda explaining the meaning of new legislation used anywhere that you know of in the US? If so, are they legally relevant to interpreting legislation?

[Kidlicious]

Or, just amend the Constitution. Duh. Why the **** is it that we refuse to use this, the actual legal method of passing legislation that would otherwise be unconstitutional? Yeah, it's hard to get done, but it's supposed to be.

The corporations are going to fight the amendment.

[Kidlicious]

Actually, no, no we don't. Hitler was a national SOCIALIST, and has zilch to do with 'right wing thought' as Stalin.

You're making about as much sense as ever.